


Got My Mark on You

by stevesnosebump



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Childhood Memories, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This For Me, Insecurities, Kid Bucky Barnes, Kid Steve Rogers, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Tags Are Hard, so many em dashes and italics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevesnosebump/pseuds/stevesnosebump
Summary: When they're children, Bucky accidentally breaks Steve's nose.It never fully heals.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	Got My Mark on You

**Author's Note:**

> this is a response to a fic (which shall remain unnamed!) that committed a war crime by calling Steve’s beautiful n perfect nose “ugly.” I was very offended. Bucky and I decided to show our baby’s nose some loving to remedy the devastation that war crime caused. 
> 
> Remember [this](https://stevesnosebump.tumblr.com/post/633890666163929089/when-i-use-this-hc-for-my-ficthen-what) tumblr post? yeah. that’s what this fic is. 
> 
> Author does not know how children talk...

Bucky freezes when the sobbing starts.

That’s when he knows he’s done something  _ bad.  _ When Steve skips the sniffling and hiding his face and goes straight to full-blown  _ sobbing.  _ This is bad because Steve doesn’t like to cry, much less sob. He typically puts on a brave face, declaring  _ “‘M not a  _ baby, _ Buck!”  _ and holds it in until his real emotions can’t be contained any longer. 

This is different. Right now, Steve is bawling his eyes out, hands pressed to his nose as blood drips out, making a mess on his hands and face. 

“Steve? Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but he asks it anyway. His fight-or-flight response is completely malfunctioning right now, turning him into a complete moron incapable of doing anything useful. 

“It hurts,” Steve whimpers, voice muffled behind his hands. 

Sarah isn’t home from work yet, so Bucky will have to do his best to take care of Steve until she returns. 

He braces himself with a deep breath before responding. “You’ll be okay. Let’s get you washed up.” 

———

Washing up isn't the picture-perfect remedy Bucky had hoped for. The blood continues to run from Steve’s nose like a faucet, and Bucky can tell that a nasty bruise will be forming over the next few days. 

“Hey, Buck?” Steve’s voice is quiet, still shaky from when he was crying.

“Yeah?” 

“Does my nose look weird to you?” 

Bucky had noticed it, too, but he had told himself that his paranoia was just making him see things. Unless they’re having some shared illusion, the answer is an obvious  _ yes,  _ Steve’s nose does look a little odd right now—misshapen from the impact of Bucky’s elbow, which had collided into Steve’s nose when they had gotten a bit too rough with their play fighting. They both know that it’s very likely that Steve’s nose is broken, but they don’t want to voice that thought. Doctors are expensive, and Steve’s ma doesn’t have much money. She certainly doesn’t have  _ broken nose  _ money. The thought of Sarah having to shell her month’s earnings together—money that could be spent on food or clothes or something nice for herself and Steve—to fix Bucky’s stupid mistake makes him want to lie down and die immediately. 

“I...I don’t know,” Bucky eventually responds, hesitant to confirm the news they’re both dreading. “Let’s just wait til your ma gets here, okay?”

Steve is clearly tearing up again, but he nods without any argument. That’s different, too. 

———

Bucky has to fight the urge to jump out of a window when he hears the door open, followed by the sound of Sarah’s footsteps. She’s home after a long, hard day of work. And now Bucky has to tell her that he thinks he broke Steve’s nose. Standing completely still in the bathroom with Steve, Bucky can’t remember the last time he’s ever felt this nauseous, thinks it might be worse than the last time he had the flu. 

He knows it’s best to just tell her know and get it over with, to rip it off quick like a band-aid and hope for the best. 

“Come on, Steve,” he whispers, voice awfully shaky. He holds Steve by the elbow of the arm the younger boy is using to hold a rag to his nose, and together they walk to the living room to greet Sarah. 

_ “Ma,”  _ Steve croaks out, actually sounding his age for the first time in a while. 

Sarah gasps at the sight of her young son grasping a blood-soaked rag to his nose. She immediately bends down, gingerly touching his cheeks as she looks into his tearful eyes. “Sunshine, what happened?

“It was an accident,” Steve tells her first, not wanting her to be mad at Bucky for something he didn’t mean to do. 

“Okay, but what happened?” 

Steve bursts into tears again, likely shaken by the contrast of the pain in his nose and the gentleness of his ma’s hands and demeanor. 

“I...I accidentally elbowed him in the nose. I’m sorry,” Bucky confesses with a mumble from where he stands behind Steve. 

Sarah nods at his response, giving him a gentle smile to reassure him that she’s not angry. Refocusing on Steve, she gently moves his hand so she can inspect him.

_ “Oh,”  _ she gasps, unable to stop the word from leaving her lips. It looks  _ bad,  _ his nose is clearly misshapen and the bruise is already settling on his pale skin, leaving a nasty color on the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. She can already tell that it’s broken.

“Let’s get you to the doctor,” she tells him, voice low but still attempting to sound cheery. 

“I’m so—”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Bucky,” Sarah cuts him off with a smile. “Accidents happen,” she stands, gently pushing Steve over to the direction of the coat rack. “Why don’t you head home, eat some dinner with your folks? We’ll update you tomorrow.” 

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat before responding with a meek, “Sure, yeah. Good luck,” and with that, he walks out of their apartment, spending his walk home mentally berating himself for hurting Steve.

———

The next morning, Bucky is up earlier than usual. He hastily informs his parents that he’s heading over to Steve’s, and he’s out the door as soon as they tell him goodbye. He rushes over, hoping he’ll be able to catch Sarah before she’s gone for work. 

“Good morning, Bucky,” Sarah greets him, cheery as always, when she opens the door for him. She’s dressed for work, and the bag in her hand indicates that Bucky had caught her just as she was about to leave. 

“Morning. Is Steve, uh...is he okay?” 

Sarah’s cheerful smile turns into a pitying one, and Bucky knows the answer before she even speaks. Steve’s nose is broken and it’s all his fault. 

“Now, don’t beat yourself up about it, Bucky,” she tells him, moving to the side so he can enter the apartment and shutting the door behind him. “It was just an accident. No one’s upset with you.” 

Bucky worries his lips to keep himself from apologizing for what might be the millionth time. 

“Well, I’m off to work,” Sarah tells him, leaning down a bit to stroke his cheek. “Steve’s still asleep in bed so you’ll have to keep yourself entertained until he wakes up, but you’re free to stay, as always,” they smile at one another as Sarah gets back up and opens the front door again. She turns to blow Bucky a kiss, and then she’s off to work. 

He walks to Steve’s bedroom, trying to stay as quiet as possible so he doesn’t wake him up. The door is already open, and when he peeks in, he can see Steve sleeping on his back, head slightly elevated by his pillow. His gut twists with guilt when he notices the white splint on Steve’s nose. 

When he gets next to Steve’s bed for a closer look, he feels his gut twist even more. The bruises that have formed are visible from the sides of the splint, patches covering the skin on both sides of his nose and under his eyes. It looks painful. He'd elbowed Steve even harder than he’d realized. 

He’s supposed to protect Steve, not  _ hurt  _ him. Right now, Bucky feels no better than those bullies that taunt Steve as they beat him up. Logically, he knows that’s ridiculous—Bucky would  _ never  _ intentionally hurt Steve, and this injury is no different. It was an accident. But the guilt eats away at Bucky anyway. 

He lets out a frustrated sigh as he uses his palms to wipe away the tears forming in his eyes _ —what’s he even crying for?— _ and leaves the room as quietly as he can. He’ll eat the breakfast he’d skipped on his rush to the apartment while he waits for Steve to wake up. 

Bucky is washing the dishes he’d used for his breakfast when he hears Steve wake up. For some reason, it makes him nervous, so he holds his breath as he listens to Steve’s footsteps. He releases his breath again when he hears Steve shut the bathroom door. He won’t have to face him just yet. 

He hates that he’s dreading Steve’s presence—they’ve been best friends for a while now, and Bucky has always loved hanging out with Steve—but the guilt is consuming him. He knows it shouldn’t, logically he knows that he did nothing wrong so he shouldn’t feel so guilty, but he can’t help it. He’ll never forget the way his heart sank when Steve started crying, how nauseous he felt when he saw the blood trickling down Steve’s nose, how his heart sank when they looked in the mirror and noticed Steve’s misshapen nose. It’ll haunt him forever. 

He tries to compose himself so Steve, who can read him like a  _ book,  _ won’t notice how distraught he is. He tries to focus on the motions of washing the dishes, drying them, and putting them away as he attempts to regulate his breathing. Maybe if he can pretend everything is normal, it’ll come true, and Steve’s nose won’t be broken anymore and he won’t have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve, voice noticeably nasally, greets when he steps into the kitchen. Bucky’s presence doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. He had known Bucky would check on him, wanting to know what the doctor had said. 

“Hey,” Bucky responds as cheerfully as he can muster. He uses the dishrag to dry his hands as slowly as he can, attempting to delay having to face Steve.

“I’m not mad at you,” Steve sighs, aware of the fact that Bucky is only drying his hands for so long so he can look busy. 

“I just...feel bad,” Bucky shrugs, finally putting the rag down and turning to face his friend. “I hurt you. Bad.” 

Steve doesn’t really know what to say to that. He can’t deny it—Bucky had hurt him. A lot. Of course he hadn’t done it on purpose, but a broken nose is painful regardless of how it was caused. 

They could stand here and mope all day, with Bucky feeling unnecessarily guilty and Steve trying to reassure him until Bucky finally stops feeling guilty (which, knowing Bucky, might not be until Steve’s nose is healed again). 

Steve doesn’t see the point in that, so he shrugs and asks if Bucky wants to bake cookies instead. 

It’s the perfect way to distract Bucky—he seems to forget all about Steve’s injury the moment the word  _ cookies  _ is uttered. 

“Cookies? Now?” Bucky questions, eyes on the clock that shows that, by their mothers’ standards, it’s way too early for cookies. 

Steve shrugs again, a mischievous glint in his eyes as a wide grin slides over his face. “Yeah, why not?” 

Bucky smiles back at him, his earlier feelings of guilt and despair fading away.

“I’ll get the ingredients, you grab the tools,” Steve tells him, already walking to the fridge to grab the eggs and butter. 

“Aye aye, Captain!” Bucky responds with a mock salute.

As Bucky is grabbing a bowl for them to mix the ingredients in, he understands why Steve tasked himself with grabbing the ingredients and left Bucky to grab the tools. 

_ He’s too short to reach the bowl.  _

Bucky isn’t the tallest boy on earth—he’s still a growing boy, and still has to get on his tiptoes to get the bowl—but the cabinets in the cheap apartment’s kitchen aren’t high up by any means. The fact that Steve would need to grab a chair or clamber onto the countertop is funnier to Bucky than it probably should be. 

“What?” Steve questions when he hears Bucky let out a light laugh.

“Nothing,” Bucky tries (and fails) to wipe the smile off his face.

“Buck—what? What’s so funny?” 

He holds the bowl up, showcasing it to the smaller boy. “Got it.”

Steve nods. “Thought you would.” 

“Had to get on my tippy toes, but...got it.” 

“Are you bragging?” Steve asks with a smile, already understanding what Bucky is trying to say.

“Maybe,” he grins widely enough to showcase the gap where his tooth had fallen out. 

Steve had last seen that smile yesterday, moments before Bucky’s elbow collided with his nose, but seeing it in that moment makes him realize how much he’d missed it. Bucky just didn’t look the same with a frown on his face.

_ This,  _ on the other hand, this is his Bucky, with a wide grin on his face and a laugh he can’t hold back echoing around the room, radiating joy and brightness. This is what he loves about Bucky. 

He laughs along with Bucky, but he can’t ignore some weird feeling that starts itching at him. He can’t describe what it is. Whatever it is, it starts in his tummy, should make him feel sick but  _ doesn’t, _ and it makes his heart skip a beat—but in an okay way, not like it does on a bad day where it’s particularly weak. 

He feels all this as he’s looking at Bucky. He can’t put his finger on what it is, but he bets that it’s a good thing. Things are always good when he has Bucky by his side. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop teasing,” Bucky sets the bowl down on the counter. “I want cookies.” 

They bake together, Steve smacking Bucky’s hands away whenever he tries to sneak a taste of the batter ( _ “What? It tastes good!” _ he’d whine each time) and Bucky clasps a hand over Steve’s to help him stir at one point. 

“What? I’ve got it,” Steve protests when he realizes why Bucky placed his hand on top of Steve’s on the whisk.

“Lemme help. It’ll be faster.” 

Steve doesn’t argue, just watches where their hands are connected as Bucky beats the batter for the two of them. The feeling from earlier comes back—or maybe it never even left—and Steve, still not sure of what it means, tries to ignore it. He’s sharing a nice moment with his best friend. He wants to be present, not distracted by some feeling he can’t even name.

“You think it’s done?” Bucky asks him, inspecting the batter. 

“Yeah,” Steve nods, swallowing down the lump of  _ feeling  _ in his throat. “Looks good to me.”

“I’ll put it in the sink,” Bucky says, grabbing the whisk out of the bowl once they both let go. 

“Don’t—” Steve starts, knowing Bucky all too well.

It’s too late, Bucky’s tongue is already licking the batter off the whisk. 

“Huh?” he asks, feigning innocence.

Steve just shakes his head at him, unable to conceal a smile for long enough to act like he’s disappointed. 

“You’re washing the dishes after.” 

“Worth it,” Bucky grins. 

Once the cookies are in the oven, Steve and Bucky clean up the kitchen as they wait for them to bake. The kitchen is far messier than it gets when Steve bakes cookies with his ma. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want him baking without her supervision. 

They take the time to make sure every inch of the kitchen gets cleaned well—they don’t want Sarah to be too upset about the fact that they had baked cookies without her knowledge. 

“Are they almost done?” Bucky, impatient as ever, asks once they’ve finished cleaning.

“Don’t think so,” Steve tells him, walking over to the oven to double check. “Few more minutes.”

Bucky sighs, joining Steve in front of the oven and plopping onto the ground. 

“Gonna watch,” Bucky explains when he notices the inquisitive look Steve is giving him. “They bake faster when you watch.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” Steve, despite his skepticism, joins Bucky on the floor.

Bucky leans to the side, allowing his shoulder to gently bump against Steve’s. 

“How’s your nose?”

“Hurts less now. Doctor said my nose should be normal again in a month, hopefully.”

“Good,” Bucky nods. For once, the apology goes unsaid. 

They both jump up when the oven dings, signalling that their wait is finally over.

Steve has to grab Bucky’s hand to keep him from taking the cookies out with his bare hands. “Mitts, Buck,” he reminds him.  _ “Careful.”  _

Bucky rushes to grab a pair, flings the oven door open and pulls the cookies out with lightning speed. 

“I think they’re burnt,” he frowns as he places the tray on the trivet that Steve had fortunately placed on the counter top when Bucky was grabbing the cookies. 

“Just a little,” Steve shrugs. He reaches to grab a cookie, but this time it’s Bucky’s hand slapping Steve’s away.

“Too hot. Wait,” the longing look on his face makes it seem as if he’s reminding himself of the fact just as much as he’s reminding Steve. 

They stand in place, staring down at the tray of cookies as they wait for them to cool down. 

“Hey, Buck?” Steve calls in a near whisper. 

“Yeah?” 

“What if my nose...looks weird?”

Bucky turns to look at Steve, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Steve doesn’t look back, keeps his gaze locked on the cookies. Except, this time it’s not because he’s impatiently waiting for them to be ready, this time it’s because he doesn’t want to face Bucky. He hates being so vulnerable, wants to kick himself when his eyes begin to water and his throat feels tight. 

“What?”

He takes a moment to clear his throat and blink the tears away. “Doctor said my nose might not...look the same... when it feels better,” he still isn’t facing Bucky—an outsider would think he’s losing his mind, having a conversation with a tray of cookies. 

“So what if it doesn’t?” 

Steve shrugs, bites his lip when a tear finally slips. “I’ll look weird. Doctor said I could get surgery, but ma can’t afford that.”

The possibility hangs heavy in the air. What if Steve’s nose really is never the same? Does Steve, who’s already insecure enough, need another thing to be insecure about? Would the visual reminder of the pain he’d inflicted haunt Bucky forever? 

“I’ll get the money,” Bucky tells him, determined. 

_ That  _ makes Steve look him in the eyes. 

“For your surgery. I’ll borrow my folks’ money. Get a job. I’ll find a way.”

“Buck, no. It’s okay.” 

At a loss for what else he could possibly say, Bucky settles for a quiet, “I’m sorry,” and just like the last hundred times he’d said it, he  _ means _ it. He feels terrible, can’t believe that a bit of roughhousing had broken his best friend’s nose, let alone that the damage may be permanent. 

“Hey,” Steve wipes his tears away in an attempt to compose himself again. “I think the cookies are ready,” he grabs two, handing one to Bucky. He giggles as Bucky eagerly bites into it, their shared sadness from only a moment ago already seemingly forgotten.

  
  


Bucky chances a glance at Steve’s splint-covered nose and the bruises peeking out. So what if his nose never looks the same? Would that really be so bad? 

As he watches Steve bite into his cookie, he realizes that it wouldn’t matter to him at all. He can’t remember a day in his life since he’d met that scrawny little boy when he didn’t think he looked good. He’s seen him bloodied and angry in back-alleys, his atrocious bedhead when he wakes up, and he’s seeing him now, in the low kitchen light with a hell of a bruise covering the underneaths of his eyes. He doesn’t think a misshapen nose could change his perception of Steve. 

———

Steve’s nose never does return to its normal shape. It’s not as bad as he had worried it would be, though—it’s just a little bump on the bridge of his nose. His classmates had marvelled at it when he returned to school, asked him a million questions about what happened and if it hurts, but no one else seems to notice it, and if they do, they don’t care enough to point it out to him. 

That bump on his nose quickly becomes Bucky’s favorite place to kiss Steve, once they finally admit they’re in love with one another. 

Whenever he looks in the mirror, he feels a bit silly for worrying about his nose so much—but, in his defense, the doctor had never told him just  _ how  _ different it might look, so of course a young boy’s mind would race to the worst-case scenario). 

He expects the bump to go away once he’s injected with the supersoldier serum—it’s supposed to make him into the perfect specimen, after all, and it got rid of everything else that was wrong with him. 

To his surprise, the bump on his nose (along with the scar on his left arm) stays despite the serum. His chronic illnesses are gone, his posture is fixed, he’s taller, he’s muscular as hell—and despite it all, there sits his nose, as crooked as it’s been since the day Bucky had broken it. 

Bucky is smug as all hell about it, tells him,  _ “Got my mark on you even through the serum, huh, Rogers?”  _ to which Steve rolls his eyes, but is unable to conceal his blush. 

Steve doesn’t know it, but his crooked nose even saves him at one point, is the thing that Bucky’s eyes land on that keeps The Winter Soldier from finishing his mission (that familiar nose, along with the vow they’ve exchanged for years, is enough for Bucky to break through the brainwashing). 

Steve doesn’t feel insecure about the bump on his nose—no one ever points it out, and Bucky kisses it so often that even Steve begins to believe it’s beautiful and worthy of some gentle loving.

He doesn’t feel insecure about it until he’s given a reason to.

———

The 21st century is great, once Steve and Bucky manage to adjust to it in their new (excessively gentrified) home in Brooklyn. 

Giving into the pressure from Sam and Natasha, Steve and Bucky eventually give social media a try. They’re wary at first, but once they play around with Instagram and Twitter, it’s...fun. They don’t post too often, but when they do, they share pictures of sights in Brooklyn, the alleyway cat they feed, outings with the rest of the Avengers, and themselves—either a photo one had snuck of the other or a photo of the two of them cuddling (another perk of living in America in the 21st century—they can openly love each other without fear). 

Steve knows that people can be mean, especially with the sense of anonymity the internet offers, but he never expects comments from a few strangers to hurt so much when he shares a closeup of his side profile. 

It’s the first time so many people have called his crooked nose  _ ugly. _ He scrolls through the negative comments, seeking out hurtful remark after hurtful remark, until the thoughts get too loud and the tears in his eyes make his vision blurry.

“If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?” He asks Bucky as they’re lying in bed that night, his back facing away from his lover.

“What? Yeah, of course.”

Steve turns to face him, but decides to look at Bucky’s cleft chin as he talks instead of looking him in the eyes. He doesn’t want to see Bucky’s reaction when he asks his question, and he doesn’t want to cry right now, either.

“Am I ugly?”

The question is met with a silence that makes Steve’s stomach sink. He’d asked Bucky to be honest with him, but he hopes the answer is no, or that he’ll lie anyway to spare Steve’s feelings.

“Hey,” Bucky coos, gently cupping a hand on Steve’s cheek and lifting his face so they’re making eye contact. “What’re you asking me that for, doll?”

Steve takes a deep, shaky breath before he speaks. “People said my crooked nose is ugly.”

Once again, Steve’s response is met with silence. 

“I can fix it, I think I can afford surgery now.” 

“Is that what you want?” 

“What?”

“Do  _ you  _ want surgery, or would you get it for the people calling you ugly?” 

Steve bites his lip. He knows the answer to that, but he hates the question. He doesn’t have to answer, though, since Bucky already knows the answer.

“You have to stop trying to please everyone else. Live for yourself. What happened to that stubborn fella who never followed orders?” 

“Buck,” Steve whispers.

“Hmm?”

_ “You never answered the question,” _ It’s stupid, Steve knows that, but right now he needs to hear it from Bucky. He can still see the negative comments in his mind, and they’re breaking his heart all over again. 

_ “Sunshine,”  _ Bucky breathes out with a light chuckle. He understands why Steve is upset, but he can’t believe that it’s a real question that needs answering. “‘Course you’re not ugly. Prettiest little thing I’ve ever set my eyes on, I  _ swear.” _

Steve smiles at that, kisses Bucky on the lips, a kiss that both of them smile through.

Bucky isn’t done, though, and he makes it known the second they both pull away from the kiss.

“And this nose?” he pauses to kiss the bump. “Prettiest nose I’ve ever seen. I love this nose, you know that. And I think the serum agrees with me.” 

Steve gives him an inquisitive look. “What?” 

“I mean, the serum changed your body. A lot. And yet, that bump on your nose is still the same. Must mean the serum likes it, too.”

Steve playfully rolls his eyes, but his true feelings toward the sentiment are given away by the wide grin on his face and the happy glow he’s practically radiating. 

“Thank you,” he kisses Bucky again. “You always know just what to say, Buck.”

Bucky kisses his nose again, revelling in the giggle that escapes Steve’s lips. “I love you, sunshine. Now let’s get some sleep, yeah?” He lets go of Steve’s face, opting to lie on his back and pull Steve in so his lover’s head is resting on his chest. 

“Goodnight, Buck. I love you,” Steve mumbles, already feeling the sleep taking over his body, no doubt a byproduct of the toll his emotions had taken on him earlier. 

Steve has never been thankful for an injury before, but in that moment, he’s glad Bucky’s elbow had knocked into his nose all those years ago. With a serum designed to make Steve flawless, he’s grateful to have some sort of flaw to make him feel human again.

And he thanks his lucky stars for Bucky himself, because who would’ve thought Steve could get lucky enough to have a lover who truly understands and loves him for who he is (serum or no serum),someone who sees him as Steven Grant Rogers, not  _ Captain America? _

As if he can hear Steve’s thoughts, Bucky presses a kiss to the top of Steve’s head that makes Steve sigh in content, finally relaxing as he allows the sleep to take over his body. 

He’s glad he’ll always have Bucky by his side. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Cookie baking scene was fully inspired by [this](https://kayaczek.tumblr.com/post/116745550557/i-seriously-hope-this-is-how-ovens-looked-back-in) beautiful perfect amazing fan art on tumblr! look at those cuties :)
> 
> stevesnosebumpophiles unite!


End file.
